Evening capital. (Annapolis, Md.) 1884-1910, 1887-12-27
ANNAPoIIs Nd TUESDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 27, 1887
CUSTOM HOUSE CLERKS.
Dimculty of Computing Compound Duties.
Driven Mad by Figures.


There Is one department In the custom
house for which there are not many as
pirants, though the pay Is good. 1t is the
iquidating department. 1he work Is
hard and puzzkng, aud it requires man
of peculiar temperament TO make his way
in it. The liquidating Office is sae place
where the final calculation of the duties
to be paid on imported goods is made.
When the goods are first entered a rough
estimate OF the duties as per invoice is
made and the duties are deposited Then,
after the work of the surveyors Office is
completed and the appraiser has examined
the goods and placed on the invoices their
classification and rate of duty, the work
of the liquidating Office begins
One OF the liquidating clerks, in speak
ing to a reporter about the work of the
Office, said:
''To one Who is not acquainted by act
ual experience with the work, it is q hard
matter to explain 1t. have never known
such difficult work In the first place the
invoices come to you in every known Ian
guage, and the measures Of quantity and
value are expressed in the same tongue as
that in which the invoice is written. All
these, in the first place, have TO be re-
duced to American measures and values,
and is trying work. Then man in our
department. has to be walking encyclo-
pedia of commercial and trade technicali-
ties.
zone Of the most puzzling things in
our work is the figuring out OF the duty
on articles which pay compound tax.
Take for instance dress goods. The tax
is cents q yard and S5 per cent ad
valorem, or 7cents yard and 40 per cent,
according to whether the value is over or
under 90 cents a yard Say we have n
consignment of 1000 yards of dress goods
from England which are billed in the in
voice at 2 shillings and 6 pence, less 1.37,
q favorite discount less B per cent, less 2
per cent, and with charges say Of G12.
The charges must be deducted and dis
counts taken off in order to find out just
what the cost per yard is, and on this the
duty is assessed. This is simple opera
ton compared to many we have.
On all worsted goods there is specific
and ad valorem duty for goods weighing
under four ounces n yard, and another
for goods over four ounces, and on some
other woolen goods we have to find out
whether they cost 40, 60 or 80 cents a
pound, because different rates of duty are
charged. have had sometimes to make
as many as twenty-five different calcula-
tions to ascertain what the rate of duty
was on a certain line of goods. We can't
go by the appraisers calculation at all;
his work is done hurriedly in many cases,
and we can't afford to trust him.
about the most tedious work we have
is ON invoices of glass. 1t comes in all
sizes and weights, and there is a different
duty for each size and weight. / have
known of invoices that required the max
ing of 10, 900 figures to ascertain the duty.
Sugar is another tedious article to figure
on. 1t is graded by polariscope test, and a
different rate of duty is charged for every
degree above 20.
'Wines, liquors and tobacco all have
compound duties, which, as l said, give
us the hardest work. The work never
gets easy, as puzzlers are liable to come
up at any time. There are men in the
Office who have been there fifteen years,
and they will frequently come across some
thing in an invoice which they have never
met before 1t is like sitting down to
solve a Chinese puzzle and keeping ut Il
for eight or ten hours every day
sit helps a man very little to be .
mathematician. Young Mather, whu
committed suicide, was in the Office, and
was a splendid mathematician, but he was
of nervous temperament, and don't
doubt that puzzling over some of those in
fernal 'over or under four ounce invoices
drove him crazy. New York Press.